


Penance of Another

by Vipersweb (Rhianona)



Series: Awesome Ladies Ficathon [2]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-14
Updated: 2010-07-14
Packaged: 2017-10-10 13:35:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/100339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhianona/pseuds/Vipersweb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>River cleans up after the Doctor, sometimes without even knowing why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Penance of Another

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: [Insert witty comment here] Dr. Who doesn't belong to me
> 
> Written for Awesome Ladies ficathon. Prompt used: River Song, What is history? History is women following behind with a bucket.
> 
> Spoilers through the Weeping Angel two-parter as I've not seen all of this season of Dr. Who

River doesn't know when she first fell in love with history. It just always seemed to be there. It calls to her like a siren's song and she rushes headlong into the danger.

History _shouldn't_ be dangerous but as her family can attest, that's never stopped her before.

The first time she meets the Doctor, she doesn't realize what she's getting into. He's off chasing danger (as he's wont to) and she follows, drawn to him for reasons she can't explain and he does nothing to dissuade her from following.

She runs a lot when she's with him.

He shows up throughout her life and she begins to keep a journal, carefully detailing each and every time she's met him, each and every story he tells her before he leaves her again. She thinks it will be important. Later, she teases him with the information.

The Doctor doesn't ask her to travel with him until the fifth time he meets her.

She leaps at the chance and he sweeps her away through time and space.

She learns, from what he doesn't tell her, about time: how it works, how to manipulate it, how to bring him to her or have him teach what she wants to know. The little journal she carries with her helps in that -- after all, if she tells him he taught her to drive the TARDIS in her future, he'll have to go to her past to teach her.

The Doctor leaves behind messes. He saves the day, because that's what he does, but he never remains behind to help in the clean up. What does it matter to him if the people he saved can't handle what he has given them?

It annoys her and makes her wonder why none of his Companions ever call him on it.

She finds out when he blithely ignores her prodding. He's not the omnipotent being she thought him and she stops treating him as such.

He seems to like that better.

It amuses her when she meets up with him in his past, her future. He never seems to quite know what to do with her. He looks at her with sad eyes that tell her nothing more than that her future -- whenever that is -- will not end happily.

She kills him because he tells her to; as she's lead away to prison, she wonders if he knew that she would always be following him, cleaning up his messes... and paying the price for it.


End file.
